Penguins 1 - Sabres 4: Sliced and Diced

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Sidney Crosby and the Penguins were absolutely sliced up by the Buffalo Sabres tonight in a 4-1 loss. The Sabres were determined to win the Eastern Conference title, and they did that with some fine goaltending and expert penalty killing.

Crosby? He finished pointless and -1 in 20:54 of ice time. Not a memorable game for him...

From Yahoo! Sports:

The streets lining Pittsburgh's Mellon Arena are draped with banners celebrating the Penguins' first playoff appearance in six years. The Buffalo Sabres gave the home team a reminder of what it takes to win in the postseason.

The Sabres clinched the Northeast Division and wrapped up the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference for the first time in 27 years, slowing Pittsburgh's rush to the postseason with a 4-1 victory on Tuesday night.

In a possible playoff preview, Thomas Vanek scored his 40th and Jason Pominville scored slightly more than a minute later in the third period to put the Sabres up by three in only their fourth victory in Pittsburgh in 10 years. They had been 3-12-5-1 there since the 1996-97 season.

Clearly, the Sabres weren't awed by the huge sign celebrating Penguins stars such as Sidney Crosby that covers nearly one side of a building near the arena.

"We took care of the puck, we didn't make a lot of mistakes and we didn't give them a lot of opportunities," Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. "We took a lot of pride in playing in our own end."

"We had opportunities on the power play and we didn't take advantage of them," Crosby said after the Penguins went 0-for-8 on the power play. "I think if we score on one of those power plays, it's a whole different game."

If you score on one of the PPs, it's still just a 4-2 game, not accounting for how the universe would have shifted and ...err.. *brain explodes*